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# Helium
- URL: https://www.andyposner.org/helium/
- Published: 2020-05-29T02:03:20.000Z
- Updated: 2026-07-15T05:03:07.000Z
- Description: The last thing he saw was the joy in her eyes. Back home the flowers have wilted and the balloon, twisting slowly in the now-stale air, sinks lower and lower to the ground.
- Author: Andy
- Tags: America on the Brink, poetry, America, Martin Luther King, protest, #Migrated-1784090317409, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-07-15 04:39

[His Momma died 18 months ago](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8363569/Houston-rap-star-reveals-anguish-seeing-George-Floyd-crying-late-mom-video.html?ref=andyposner.org). For Mother’s Day,  
he bought one of those shiny Mylar helium balloons  
and some Carnations. It wasn’t easy to do, between shifts  
at work and wearing a mask to the store—it’s dangerous  
for a Black man to protect himself against a virus—  
but he wanted to honor the woman who,  
in spite of the odds, had kept him alive.

He tied the balloon to a vase on the kitchen table  
where they used to listen to music and cook dinner.  
When the store clerk was filling it, he  
stifled a laugh-turned-cry, remembering that birthday  
when she got him 20 balloons and one-by-one  
they inhaled the noble gas,  
nearly dying of laughter at their squeaky voices.

Leaving for the final time, he caught his reflection  
in the Mylar. Hours later, dying beneath a cop’s knee,  
he called out for Momma.  
The last thing he saw was the joy in her eyes.

Back home the flowers have wilted and the balloon,  
twisting slowly in the now-stale air,  
sinks lower and lower to the ground.

*in memory of George Floyd*